


all this longing

by belovedmuerto



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: First Time, Kind of angsty, M/M, Post-Reichenbach, and some rom com shenanigans type stuff, and there is rain, everything isn't cool but it will be eventually, in which Sherlock is miserable and John is quite angry, it's not, this was supposed to be fluff goddammit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-20
Updated: 2012-08-20
Packaged: 2017-11-12 13:33:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/491603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belovedmuerto/pseuds/belovedmuerto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is enough to know that he’s still alive. It’s too much, knowing that he’d been alive the whole time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all this longing

**Author's Note:**

> I have about a million people to thank for their help with this. Castiron, as always, for being an awesome beta. Thisprettywren and lifeonmars for reading for me and telling me they liked it. Bendingsignpost and persian_slipper for talking me through the smutty bit, with help from Ivyblossom and PrettyArbitrary. HiddenLacuna for suggesting the hot toddy. And everyone at #innercircle in general for listening to my bitching and griping and not telling me to take a long walk off a short pier. Y'all are all pretty fucking awesome. Thanks.
> 
> I apologize for the fact that this, which was supposed to somehow be post-TRF first-time fluff (yeah, don't ask me how, it seemed fluffier in my head) is not. But it's not super angsty, at least?

It is enough to know that he’s still alive. It’s too much, knowing that he’d been alive the whole time. John fights with it. He rails against it; he tries to accept it. Usually, he comes down somewhere in the middle.

There are days when his first thought upon waking up in the morning _isn’t_ something like ‘Sherlock is alive. Jesus fucking Christ’. There are even days when his first thought doesn’t concern Sherlock at all. Those days are rare, and always have been, since the day he moved into the flat with Sherlock, and doubly so since moving out.

He tries to avoid thinking about Sherlock, with varying degrees of failure. He eats breakfast in his tiny kitchen, in his tiny flat. It doesn’t feel like home here, and he hates that. He rarely sleeps truly well, but he refuses to consider why. It’s not far from Baker St, but he had only gone over there at Mrs Hudson’s request, and she could see what it did to him, being back there, and hasn’t asked him over often. The last time, he ended up slumped in a chair in her kitchen with her urging biscuits and extra-milky tea on him while he shook and tried to keep himself from crying.

John thinks of Sherlock, and how angry he is with his best friend.

He goes to his new job: boring, bland. It pays the bills (unlike Sherlock). (Dammit.)

It’s been nearly three months since the day Sherlock knocked on his door. Since Sherlock stood in his not-really-a-lounge in his tiny flat, too alive to be there, too vibrant for this drab flat, for John’s ugly furniture, for the space in his head, since Sherlock stood and fidgeted with his phone and tried, stammering in a way John hadn’t thought possible, to explain why.

Nearly three months since Sherlock said, desperately, voice shaking, “I’m sorry, John.”

Since John had walked him to the door (herded him, really) and said, very sensibly, “Fuck you, Sherlock,” before shutting it on him.

Some nights, John dreams of the surprised look on Sherlock’s face. He wakes up somewhere between laughter and tears.

\----

It’s not that John doesn’t understand. He does. He understands strategy and desperation. He _was_ in the army. They do still teach some of that. He gets self-sacrifice and the overwhelming need to protect those you love. He once offered himself in Sherlock’s place, after all, to a madman. He gets it.

He understands, and he’s forgiven Sherlock for what he did. It was necessary; he does see that.

That doesn’t make him any less angry with the man.

John also understands triage: army doctor. He sort of specializes in quick diagnoses from even quicker glances. Sometimes someone is simply too far gone to be saved, has to be left to get on with it while the rest of the lot is treated first.

John isn’t sure if he’s afraid it’s him, Sherlock, or their friendship that he can’t save.

\----

Sherlock texts him nearly every day. Mundane things, mostly, the same everyday stuff he’d sent John before he’d died.

‘Milk’s gone off. -SH’

‘Bored. -SH’

‘Singed my eyebrows. Experiment not going well. -SH’

‘You updated your blog. Your writing is still sentimental. -SH’

‘BORED. -SH’

‘Lestrade came over after his shift and hit me. -SH’ (This one was sent early on, with accompanying picture. Lestrade has a decent right hook, apparently. John chuckles and vows to buy Lestrade a pint when they go to the pub next.)

‘Mrs H made your favorite biscuits. I ate five. -SH’

He never says ‘I miss you’ or ‘Please come home’ or ‘It’s not the same here without you’ or ‘I’m sorry, John’ but John sees it all the same, in every text.

John never responds, but he keeps every single one.

\----

John hates the cold winter rains. They’re bloody awful. They last for weeks, literally neverending, frigid and insidious. Even with a brolly, he’s still mostly wet and completely miserable by the time he’s made the walk from the tube stop to his flat.

He strips off and takes a quick hot shower, pulling on his thickest jumper over his vest and pyjama pants after. He turns the heat up a few degrees, just for now, and makes tea and eats leftover curry. He turns on the telly, checks his email, reads a spy novel for a while--refusing to listen to Sherlock scoffing over his reading choices in his head.

With a sigh, John wishes he had a fireplace--it would save on heating a bit and would make the place more homey--then ruthlessly stomps on following that thought any further.

He turns off the telly when the news comes on and leaves only a single lamp on for light, cracks the window so he can listen to the rain, wraps up in his duvet and curls up on the sofa. Sleeping out here on the ancient sofa isn’t going to do him any favors, but he doesn’t work tomorrow, so a night of fucked-up sleep isn’t going to do too much harm. Chances are he won’t be going anywhere anyway, and this: the rain, the warm duvet, the dim light, suits his mood.

So of course someone knocks on his door just after he’s drifted off (actually about an hour later, he sees when he checks his phone). It’s late, after midnight, and no one ever visits John, but he knows who it is. Because who else would it be?

This feels... inevitable.

Sherlock is stood outside his door, dripping, sopping, soaking wet; shivering and trying to hide it.

Idiot.

His too-long hair is plastered to his head, curls in his eyes and dripping down the back of his neck. Not that it matters much, because his hair is no more or less wet than the rest of him. His coat--that goddamn ridiculous coat--is completely sodden, and only emphasizes how much weight he lost when he was dead, and how little of it he’s found since returning.

To John, he looks utterly miserable; John can relate.

John sighs, debating. He’s half-tempted to leave Sherlock on his doorstep, but he knows the man would just _stay there_ , and as angry as he still is with Sherlock, he doesn’t actually want the man to die of hypothermia in front of his door. Might not look too good for John, what with him being a doctor and all. And he really doesn’t want Sherlock dead. Not most of the time, anyway.

“John, I need to talk to you,” Sherlock says. Or rather, attempts to say. It comes out all jumbled, mumbled, and chattered. John can see him clamp down on his body’s attempts to stay warm.

“You need to have your head examined,” John replies. He hates how exasperated he sounds. He doesn’t want to be exasperated with Sherlock; he wants to be indifferent.

_This is like something out of a romantic comedy_ , John thinks. _Next he’ll be declaring his love for me._

John giggles a little, at that, maybe a little hysterically but no one is around to hear it so who cares, and Sherlock tries to arrange his probably mostly numb features into a scowl, and utterly fails. This only makes John laugh at him just a bit more, definitely hysterically, because really, it’s the middle of the night and this is ridiculous and so very purely Sherlock it’s amazing it took him this long to do it.

John decides laughing at the man, as mean as it probably is when Sherlock’s basically a block of ice, is a decent substitution to complete indifference, and he steps back with a shake of his head to let Sherlock enter. However, Sherlock’s cold muscles seem to have all seized at once, and he doesn’t move, just stares at John.

“Jesus, Sherlock,” John murmurs, scrubbing his hands quickly across his face and pulling Sherlock into the flat.

Sherlock moans, just a little bit; his muscles retain enough feeling to protest at the movement, but follows John.

John takes him straight into the bathroom, where a little bit of warmth and humidity still linger from his earlier shower, and strips him efficiently, refusing to think about how pale Sherlock is, how thin he’s got, how prominent his ribs are, how fierce and unhappy he looks, about the goosebumps that prickle all along his skin as it is revealed to the light and the warm air, the shivers that coarse through his body at regular intervals. Sherlock doesn’t say a word; he helps John as much as he can, but his movements are clumsy with the cold and with the near continual shivering.

John scowls at him, at the pile of dripping wet clothing on the floor, at life in general.

Sherlock watches him silently, a tiny frown on his face the only indication of his thoughts.

John might be a bit more vigorous with the towel than he needs to be, but it’s satisfying in a strange way and it leaves Sherlock’s hair sticking up in every direction.

“Stay here,” John orders, wrapping the towel around Sherlock’s shoulders. Sherlock is shivering freely now as his muscles start to warm. He nods in acknowledgement of John’s order, huddling under the towel, hunched over in the middle of the tiny bathroom.

John goes to his wardrobe and looks for pyjamas that will suit Sherlock; a t-shirt, a sweatshirt that’s going to be too big in the shoulders, pyjama pants that should fit in the waist but will probably be too short because Sherlock is all leg, a pair of thick socks. He takes them back into the bathroom and hands them to Sherlock.

“Come out to the lounge when you’re dressed.”

Sherlock takes the clothing from him with shaking hands, and John leaves him to it, shutting the door most of the way and listening only for a moment for Sherlock to start moving, slowly, with curses muttered under his breath.

\----

John puts the kettle on and digs up a bottle of whisky from the far reaches of the cupboard, along with honey--he’s surprised he even has any--some lemon juice, and cinnamon. He hears Sherlock come out of the bathroom and collapse in a heap (he assumes) on the sofa, but doesn’t acknowledge him, instead concentrating on putting together the toddy he’s making. It should help the exhausted Sherlock get to sleep, which is all John wants out of this night.

He wants Sherlock to sleep, and not die of hypothermia, and not speak to him. The last thing John wants right now is to listen to Sherlock’s clumsy non-apologies and be forced to breathe through his own spiking blood pressure and anger and be forced to not hit the man, no matter how he longs to do so or how Sherlock deserves it. He has to keep thinking of Sherlock as his patient right now, not as his friend, not as the person he was more than a little in love with and a lot in lust with, not as that great fucking git that he really would like to beat bloody. Because that. That would be bad.

John struggles to stay in doctor mode as he slowly puts together the drink and doesn’t leave the kitchen until he feels confident in it.

Sherlock has wrapped up in John’s duvet and curled up on the sofa; he looks very young, in the too-short pyjama bottoms and the too-big sweatshirt. That little frown is still in place, his eyes are wide and solemn, watching John bring the drink in from the kitchen and set it down in front of him.

“Drink up,” John orders. “Then sleep.”

“John, I--”

“No,” John interrupts, harshly. Two words and all his work is completely undone.

_Goddammit, Sherlock. Just shut up._

He takes a deep breath before continuing. “Sherlock, we’re not talking tonight. Whatever it is you think you need to say, I don’t want to hear it. I’m going to make sure you aren’t going to die of hypothermia, and then we’re going to sleep. If you still need to say whatever it is in the morning, maybe I’ll listen to you. But for now, no. So don’t. Just. Don’t.”

Sherlock’s frown deepens, but he nods slowly. While John glares at him, breathing through that spiked blood pressure and increased heart rate and the tinge of red around the edges of his vision, Sherlock picks up and sips the hot toddy John had made for him. John stands over him, watching, his gaze gradually softening, until it’s gone, then takes the mug back into the kitchen.

When John returns Sherlock is standing, the duvet gathered in his arms. John rolls his eyes and takes it from him and heads towards his room.

Thankfully, his bed is big enough for two. It’s about the only thing in his flat that is. John spreads the duvet out and gestures at Sherlock. “In.”

Sherlock frowns at him.

“You’re still cold, aren’t you?”

Sherlock shrugs, but the way his gaze skitters away from John answers the question for him.

“Yeah. In.” John gives him an almost gentle shove towards the bed, and Sherlock goes, stumbling a bit. He’s going to regret this in so many ways, John knows he is, but he does it anyway. It’s probably a gross violation of ethics, but then that’s nothing John hasn’t done for Sherlock before. Why should now be any different.

Sherlock climbs into the bed and stretches out on the far side, away from the door, on his back, tense, folding his arms across his chest and shutting his eyes. That frown is still there, and for a brief moment, John wishes he could do something to banish it.

_Not a good idea, Watson_. Because all of the things he’d do to banish it involve a lot more touching than Sherlock has ever seemed to want from him. So he stomps on the urge ruthlessly--he’s old hat at that--lays down next to Sherlock, and tries to get comfortable. Eventually he finds a spot he likes, close enough to Sherlock that they’re sharing body heat without being so close that they’re touching.

It’s a delicate balance. He hates it. Everything in him is urging him to turn over, to wrap himself around Sherlock, to beg him never to leave again. He hates himself for wanting it, for the weakness of it.

Sherlock huffs and turns onto his side, brushing against him in the process. When he curls his legs up, his feet come to rest against John’s calf.

John ignores how right it feels to be sharing the same bed as Sherlock Holmes, how right it feels to even be sharing the same living space with the man (even if it’s just for a night). He keeps resisting the urge to turn over, to sprawl like he usually does in his own bed, to make himself comfortable even if it makes Sherlock uncomfortable in the process--and why shouldn’t he get comfortable? It’s his bed. Sherlock’s the one who invaded his space, who is here in his bed, why shouldn’t he feel territorial? What’s wrong with that? With wanting to keep him here, to never let him go? John’s thoughts go circular, orbiting that strange sense of rightness and how wrong it really should be, how confusing it is when above all else he’s still so angry with Sherlock, and eventually he falls asleep.

\----

John learned how to wake up quickly and completely in the army, and it’s a skill he never lost. He actually got even better at it, living with Sherlock, when he would regularly be woken by having a jumper thrown on his face (and one time, one of his shoes) and a receding voice yelling at him, “Case, John, come on!”

So he doesn’t flail awake in the dim light of early morning, he simply opens his eyes when five fingers alight on his face, thumb pressed gently over his lips. Sherlock’s other four fingers rest over his cheekbone; his thumb sweeps back and forth, feather-light.

John is flat on his back, and Sherlock is sprawled against him, mostly on top of him, _how did that happen_ , head resting on his bad shoulder, which isn’t acting so bad at this precise moment, despite the rain that is still trying to wash away the world outside. John takes a deep, shuddering breath, and Sherlock shifts, moving his head and pressing his nose into the soft hollow under John’s ear.

His head is full of buzzing, like bees, obscuring his thoughts, things he knows he should be thinking about, anger and betrayal and manipulation and all that time alone when Sherlock was dead dead dead, instead of the warmth of the body pressed against his, instead of how long it’s been, instead of the heartbeat he can feel in time with his own, instead of increased breathing and a soft pleased noise he’s not sure who made. He should be thinking of how bad an idea this is, that he never should’ve put Sherlock in his bed, no matter how cold the man had been; he hadn’t really been _that_ close to hypothermia, he would’ve been fine on the sofa instead of next to John, sending his thoughts into orbit around the image of two men in one bed. His bed isn’t really big enough for two grown men. They were too close together from the start, from the word “in”, from Sherlock’s small frown and John’s scowl and stubbornness and damned doctor-mode. John can feel the material of the sweatshirt he’d given Sherlock to wear bunched under his hand, warmed by Sherlock, over the small of Sherlock’s back, over his warm skin.

John breathes.

Sherlock breathes, brushes his thumb back and forth over John’s lips, sensitizing them, until John can’t stand it anymore and has to lick his lips.

Which ends up with him licking Sherlock’s thumb. Sherlock freezes, his breath hitches.

John shifts slightly underneath him and _oh_ , that feels real enough, immediate and present and warm enough, where they’re pressed firm against each other, hipbone against hipbone, ribcage against ribcage. He had meant to shift away, but that clearly did not work.

John takes a deep, shaky breath and shifts again, stifling the moan that rises to his lips, stifling the urge to thrust, to take, to consume. He takes a deep breath and catches the scent of Sherlock. He smells like himself, like John remembers him smelling.

For a moment, John is swamped in memories. Memories of Sherlock, of the man he’d known and loved, who had died on him, leaving him alone and lost and so angry.

The decision isn’t really conscious on John’s part. He lifts his other hand to Sherlock’s back, leaving them both to rest there for only a few moments before they start moving, almost of their own accord. The sweatshirt Sherlock is wearing slides up under his hands, and they are against warm, soft, bare skin.

Sherlock stirs against him, finally breathing again, and John doesn’t manage to entirely stifle the moan that elicits. Sherlock’s lips are against his neck, his nose against the sensitive skin behind John’s ear, his knee between John’s legs and he’s just as hard against John’s hip as John is against Sherlock’s.

“John?” Sherlock’s voice is slurred, with hesitance, with recently abandoned sleep, with desire and something like fear, like unhappiness and longing.

John turns his face toward Sherlock, takes a deep breath. “You smell like you,” he murmurs. “It’s distracting.”

When Sherlock moves, it’s to press his face into John’s neck, breath shaky, exhalation warm and damp against John’s skin, hiding the emotion showing in his eyes, the frown that hasn’t quite abandoned him. “John, please,” he murmurs, pressing, shifting, inviting, asking without words.

John turns to look at Sherlock, dislodging him from his very lovely spot against John’s neck. Sherlock tries to avert his eyes, to burrow closer to John, to swamp them both in sensation, but John grabs him, twining his fingers through soft, dark, too-long curls and lifting so he can see Sherlock’s eyes. “Why this?” he asks quietly, because he needs to know, “Why now?”

Sherlock’s eyes are wide and solemn and a little bit afraid, and that tiny frown returns, tugging down the corners of his lips. He tries to shake his head, to dislodge John’s hands, to move away, to retreat, to refuse the question, but John won’t let him go; he doesn’t want to let this go, now that they’re here he won’t let it go. He’s been too angry with Sherlock for too long, too in love with him, too everything.

John wraps his arms around Sherlock and rolls them both, putting Sherlock on his back and swarming over him, straddling him, nuzzling into his neck, nipping none too gently at his jugular, pulling a gasped moan from Sherlock. He moves his lips, his teeth, his tongue over Sherlock’s skin, tasting him, claiming him, sucking on his pulse, nipping up over his jaw, and presses their lips together in a bruising kiss.

Sherlock gasps against his lips, his hands pushing at John’s shoulders weakly even as his legs wrap around John’s waist, pushing them apart, but pulling them together much more strongly at the same time. John breaks the kiss and stares down at him from inches away, almost too close, and lets himself be pulled in, flush against Sherlock, grinding into him once, twice, until Sherlock’s eyes start to flutter, until that tiny little frown is broken apart by a gasp, until his hands grasp at John’s back desperately, digging, pulling.

John pushes himself back to sit on his haunches and tugs off his t-shirt, tossing it across the room. Sherlock stares up at him with wide eyes, breath fast, pulse jumping visibly in his throat. Hesitantly, he reaches up to run his hands over John’s chest, his stomach, the scar on his shoulder, fingers gentle and probing and nearly reverent. John stops him as he reaches the waistband of his pyjama bottoms, pinning Sherlock’s hands over his head momentarily and leaning into him, pressing his lips to the spot he’d bitten earlier, sucking the skin into his mouth and nipping again before soothing it with gentle brushes of his lips, with murmurs and sighs. Sherlock makes a humming noise, something akin to a moan, and turns his head for more.

“Is this what you want?” John asks, voice a low vibration against the skin of Sherlock’s neck.

Sherlock doesn’t answer, writhing and trying to pull his wrists out of John’s grasp. John lets him free, and Sherlock tries to pull him closer with arms and legs, turning into him, seeking friction, making frustrated, needy sounds instead, inviting, seeking, trying to distract John from the question.

“Is this what you want?” John repeats, refusing to be moved, to be distracted.

Sherlock hums but doesn’t answer, clinging to him, writing against him.

John groans but doesn’t give in, has to take a moment to just breathe. “Sherlock, look at me.”

And Sherlock obeys, finally fully looking at John. His eyes look like a million shards of glass, and that frown is back, pulling at his lips, and John just wants to make it go away. He still wants to make it go away. He _will_ make it go away, provided Sherlock gives him an affirmative answer.

He thinks it might kill him to stop now.

“Yes,” Sherlock says, voice so soft as to be nearly inaudible.

John nods, takes a deep breath.

Sherlock’s expression changes, goes vulnerable in a way John has never seen on him, fragile and soft. “John, I--”

But John doesn’t give him a chance to finish that problematic sentence, because he takes over, twining fingers into Sherlock’s hair and kissing him. Really kissing him this time, slow and languid, a promise, a vow, pressing into him from shoulder to knee, rocking against him. John’s fingers tug just enough to have Sherlock moaning his desire, and for long moments they are both swept up into the kiss. “Don’t. Please. Not now,” John murmurs into it. “Just. Don’t.”

“Okay,” Sherlock says, pants. “Okay.”

This time when John sits back, Sherlock follows him, only breaking the kiss long enough to pull off his borrowed sweatshirt and the t-shirt he’s wearing under it. He scoots back towards the wall, losing the pyjama bottoms along the way, and John grins when he sees that Sherlock had taken off his pants before putting them on.

Sherlock scowls at him, petulant. “They were wet.”

For a moment that may actually be an eternity, they stare at each other, before John breaks his gaze with a smile, crawling forward out of his own pyjama bottoms and pants. It’s not graceful, or elegant, but Sherlock isn’t frowning at him anymore, is reaching for him, and John crawls right into his lap, straddles him and sinks his hands into Sherlock’s hair and kisses him again. This is less a vow than a proposition, obscene suggestions and whispered dirty fantasies and they’re both moaning into it.

The bees set to buzzing in John’s head again, but he doesn’t mind because he doesn’t want to think right now, he just wants to feel. And he does, he feels consumed, devoured by Sherlock, who isn’t hesitant and clinging anymore, who is demanding, growling under his breath and murmuring nonsense into John’s mouth, against his neck, over his skin and into his bones.

They move together, against, into one another. John feels memorized. He looks at Sherlock, who stares back with those wide shattered glass eyes, and John doesn’t look away, and doesn’t look away, and neither does Sherlock. John thinks, _Christ, don’t leave me again_ , and he feels like every touch from Sherlock is a promise, is him swearing he won’t, _only come back to me now_.

“I will,” John manages to gasp, just before he comes apart in Sherlock’s arms. He’s still angry, he knows, he can feel it, but there’s something else there, as he watches Sherlock let go and fall apart, something like hope, like relief, a turning point.

They both collapse in the aftermath, sweaty and glowing, and Sherlock looks, just looks at him with wide eyes, possibly not even observing but just drinking him in while he rummages about and comes up with the t-shirt Sherlock had been wearing to clean them off with. He looks like that frown wants to return, his eyes still wide, though they’re starting to droop. John leans over and presses a kiss to his lips. “Go back to sleep, Sherlock.”

And for once, Sherlock listens to him.

\----

John dozes for a while, comfortable with Sherlock next to him, and then flopping over to be mostly on top of him again. Eventually he drifts back into wakefulness, with Sherlock’s head on his chest, arm and leg thrown over him as though to hang on to him even in sleep.

“This isn’t as easy as you want it to be,” he says, eventually, quietly in case Sherlock really is still asleep. He’s pretty sure Sherlock has been awake at least as long as he has.

Sherlock makes a vaguely negative noise in response, but his arm tightens across John’s waist, and he scoots impossibly closer.

“Well, it’s not for me, anyway,” John continues. “You walk over here in the rain, like something out of a not very good romantic comedy--oh yes you did this is where a working knowledge of pop culture would’ve helped you avoid the cliche--to what? Declare your undying love? That doesn’t magically fix everything, Sherlock. I’m still angry with you. It takes time. You have to respect that or we won’t be okay. Okay?”

Sherlock nods against his chest, once.

John threads his fingers through Sherlock’s hair, enjoys the sigh he feels from Sherlock against his chest, and they lay quietly for a while.

“You’ve forgiven everyone except me,” Sherlock eventually says, so quietly as to be barely more than a breath.

John sighs, opens his mouth to speak, and shuts it again, making a face at the ceiling before he answers. “Who’s everyone? Molly? I can’t fault her for being loyal; her first loyalty was to you and there’s nothing in that for me to forgive. Mine was too.”

“Was? Or is?”

“It’s not as easy as forgiving and forgetting, Sherlock. I’ve forgiven you. I understand. That doesn’t make it hurt less, that you couldn’t clue me in, or take me with you. It takes time, I can’t just turn it off. I still can’t help but take care of you, obviously. You’re in my bed. You were wearing my clothes.”

“I don’t need to be taken care of, John.”

“You don’t take care of yourself, Sherlock. Someone has to.”

“It’s just transport.”

John can hear that old argument cropping up, and he doesn’t want to have it, yet again.

“The fuck it is. No use trying that on me anymore, I know you. You’re also all snuggled up against me, in my bed, right now. You may not want to think about it, but you do like being taken care of sometimes.”

Sherlock just snorts. John can feel him frown against his chest. He doesn’t push, just cards his fingers through Sherlock’s hair a few more times before untangling himself and sitting up.

“I’m going to make breakfast. You’re going to eat. I might kick you out later, I’m not sure yet.”

Sherlock sits up and frowns at him, that same little frown with those same wide, shattered eyes.

“None of that,” John admonishes, leaning in and giving him a kiss. “Find something to wear and come out, I’ll make the tea.”

“Okay.”

John makes tea and rummages in the fridge for breakfast fixings. He doesn’t look up when Sherlock shuffles past and drops onto the sofa. John takes him a mug of tea. Sherlock looks up at him as he takes the mug and says, “I miss you.”

John sits next to him, close enough that their shoulders brush together. Sherlock leans into him a bit.

“I miss you too,” John answers, taking a sip of his tea. “I’m not sure that’s enough, though.”

Sherlock sighs. They drink in silence for a few minutes. “Can it be a start?”

John nods, slowly. “I think it can.”


End file.
